In Past Show

About Ronald Ventura

Leading Filipino contemporary artist Ronald Ventura is known for his finely crafted sculptures, installations, and works on paper, through which he seduces viewers into confronting modern ills. As he explains: “I try to do something that is inviting to draw the viewer in. […] But if you look carefully, you can see something behind.” Layers—visual and conceptual—characterize Ventura’s work. In his “Point of Know Return” series (2012), for example, he crafts apocalyptic warning signs, crossing cartoon characters with bombs, skulls, and vermin. By cobbling together images from popular culture, Eastern and Western folklore, and traditional Filipino arts and crafts, he creates expansive, surrealistic compositions, pocked with references to such dangers as rampant consumerism, pollution, and war. He also mines the fraught history of his own country, exploring the ramifications of repeated colonization on its culture and society.